Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. We hear him sending disciples out to each town that he wants to visit. And he gives his famous instructions about them shaking the dust from the feet of those who will not accept (Gospel).

Just before this, Jesus was recruiting followers. He did it in tough language (“Let the dead bury their dead!”), and now he is giving army-like instructions as to how the seventy-two disciples are to act when they go journeying to the towns (“Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals”). In light of what we saw during Holy Week, are you and I ready to be recruited to this kind of life? 

We too are sent out to spread news of the kingdom, just as the disciples were. It is not a duty imposed by guilt or command, but by gratitude for the great goodness of God. This grace comes to each of us and to all of us—as liturgical spirituality would say—especially in this time of world and individual chaos.

We see Jesus emerging from and living out of love. When a person is cared for, gratefulness is the obvious response. We see Jesus acting with gratitude and self-surrender, even on the cross.

We are to imitate him.

So let us look more closely to find what he was responding to.

One answer could be a theoretical one about the Trinity, about Jesus being the Christ, close to the Father, and receiving everything. Gratitude is at the heart of the Trinity.

But on Sunday we will have very earthy images. Take a look at the beautiful First Reading. It is a “welcome home” for a people who had been exiled from Jerusalem, who had hung up their harps because their broken hearts simply could not sing in captivity.

The Lord tells them to

suck fully of the milk of [Jerusalem’s] comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts! … As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you. (Is 66:11 ff)

These are Godly, mothering images, immediate, compelling. It is the peace given by God’s motherhood. It is the grace which our lives, our wild and wooly lives, try to emerge out of and journey back to! 

Surely a reality must have given Jesus courage on the cross.

As a baby, he had been comforted at the breast of his mother Mary, but also of the Holy Spirit herself. Notice that on the cross he would ask that most terrible question, “Why have you forsaken me?” His hope-against-hope, his memory of love against hate, these must have given him bravery, even while enmeshed in sin and danger and death.

This fullness shown forth in Jesus is what we also will remember, one in which we are loved, which sends us into the world even when we cannot recall the fond love that God had for our wriggling, snotty, childish selves. We can still call to mind what we knew of it in the past, and look for it in our adulthood at this very moment.

You know, real love, once truly given and accepted, cannot be erased. The comfort that fondled us as babies still nestles near the very center of our selves.
We need to recall it. 

If we have to search for it, as Jesus seemed to, then we must wait and hope and pray, and not give up. Jesus did not give up, on the cross or on the road to it.